The Editors-in-Chief of NJC welcome 3 new members to the boards. Earlier this year Len Barbour of Stellenbosch University in South Africa and Takashi Kato of the University of Tokyo were appointed to the Editorial Board, while Davit Zargarian, at the University of Montreal in Québec, Canada, has joined the International Advisory Board. Len and Takashi will be participating in the 2012 NJC Symposia: New Directions in Chemistry, which will be held in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing during the last week of April.
In this post I present Len Barbour, professor of chemistry at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.
Len completed his Ph.D. research in 1994 at the University of Cape Town, where he studied physico-chemical aspects of inclusion compounds under the direction of Professor Luigi Nassimbeni. He then moved to the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC) to work as a postdoctoral fellow with Professor Jerry Atwood. Len continued at UMC as a Research Assistant Professor until 2003, at which time he moved back to South Africa to take up an Associate Professor position at Stellenbosch University. Len was promoted to Full Professor in 2005 and two years later was awarded a South African Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI) Chair in Nanostructured Functional Materials, a position that was recently renewed.
Len’s research interests centre on structure-property relationships in molecular crystals. Properties of interest include porosity, nonlinear optics, and anomalous thermal expansion, with the main objective being to gain new insights into physical processes that occur at the molecular scale. Using a crystal engineering approach, the group carries out multifaceted studies that include the synthesis of molecular building blocks, crystallisation studies, kinetic and thermodynamic measurements, X-ray structure elucidation, computation and process engineering. Methodology development is also a strong research theme within the group.
Of his nomination to the NJC Board, Len had this to say: “I was greatly honoured when asked to join the editorial board of the New Journal of Chemistry—an invitation that I accepted without hesitation. NJC has a longstanding record of publishing outstanding papers that cover a broad range of subdisciplines within chemistry, and I very much look forward to making meaningful contributions aimed at maintaining and even improving the journal’s profile.“
We look forward to welcoming Len Barbour onto the Editorial Board of NJC at the upcoming Board meeting.
